


The Calm After the Storm

by psyraah



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, FMA Femslash Week, Femslash February, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 10:16:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6002146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyraah/pseuds/psyraah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You…help,” Riza says quietly. There have been enough rough nights, rough days, rough weeks, where Maria has held her like she is now, and whispered <em>you don’t ever have to apologise for this</em>, that Riza is starting to believe it. </p><p>“You help. Thank you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Calm After the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> For [FMA Femslash Week](http://www.fmafemslashweek.tumblr.com)! As usual, a pile of hurt/comfort.

“You know, you can’t shoot all your problems away.”

Riza can hear her through the earmuffs (though barely), and just grunts in acknowledgement, firing another shot. It zips through the air and cuts cleanly through where a person’s forehead would be, were there actually flesh and blood there instead of paper and ink. A perfect shot.

But she still hadn’t been good enough.

She fires another round, the feeling a familiar one: the shot rippling up her arm, and she knows the sharp report that will be echoing through the empty firing range even though it’s muffled. It’s only when she lowers her weapon that a hand settles on her shoulder.

“Come on, Riza. Have you eaten yet?”

She hasn’t had time. Well, not true, she’s had plenty of time. But she’s not hungry, not with the shame and the lingering claws of fear dug into her stomach. “I’ll get something later,” she says. With a tired breath, she slips the earmuffs off. “I’ve got work to do.”

She’s meant to be doing work now, what with the Fuhrer laid up in hospital and everything in a diplomatic mess with the assassination attempt. But she just…can’t. Every time she sits down, it all flashes through her mind again. The glint of a gun, the gun aimed at _Roy_ , the sound of three shots fired. They’d found out later—once Roy had been carted off to the hospital with a bullet in his side and they’d recovered the dead assassin’s body—that both of Riza’s shots had hit, but the first had only grazed the man’s shoulder, a split-second before her next shot had found his brain.

It’s that split-second that’s killing her.

Now the feeling of the gun in her hand is wrong, and the very action of picking it up fills her with shame. She has one use, one role, and she failed in it. What use is it if she can’t do what she’s meant to?

There’s a gentle squeeze of her shoulder.

“You couldn’t have done anything more.” Riza would marvel at how well Maria knew her, but her pride has turned to cinders, and the ashes are a cloud hanging above her. She’s sure everyone can see it.

“I’m meant to keep that from happening,” she says, voice shaking, and she can’t bring herself to look at Maria. “I’m supposed to watch, I’m supposed to protect.”

“And you did,” is the soft reply. “If you hadn’t been there, that gunman would’ve had a second shot, and Roy would’ve been finished.”

“I wasn’t fast enough.” Only years of training has her resisting the urge to slam the gun down. It would be a pathetic, childish move, but there’s so much rage in her and she doesn’t know where to put it. “If I had been faster, if I’d been more alert, then he _would_ have been unhurt.”

“Riza, that’s not how this works, and you know it.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job.” The words are sharp and forced out through gritted teeth as Riza sets the gun down, her shoulders stiff as concrete.

“Riza, that’s not what I meant.” Maria sighs. Riza knows every form of that breath— as a gasp of pleasure, a sharp inhale from surprise, or exaggerated fatigue. Right now, it’s concerned exasperation. “I’m trying to tell you how to be _human_. You take so much on yourself.”

Still, Riza refuses to look at her, but the way that she’s standing still, silent, tells Maria that it’s not because she wants to be alone. “I’m not asking you not to hurt, or not to struggle. I just want you to let me help you.” It’s all Maria’s ever really wanted. It’s the simple fact that Riza is as bright as the sun, sharp humour, beautiful laugh, but some days she can’t _see_ it and she thinks that it’s strength not to let anyone else paint the picture for her either.

Well, Maria can’t have that, can she?

Knowing how difficult it is to ask, to admit weakness, it’s Maria who moves in to wrap her arms around Riza. There’s violence in this soldier, violence born in desert and blood that’s never truly gone. It gets buried, Maria knows, beneath duty and honour and pride. Riza’s worked hard to smooth new soil over dry desert sand, plant new life through the rake of a brush through Hayate’s coat, through delicately working a wood-carving, through her fingers tangled up with Maria’s. But sometimes, the rain comes to rout and scatter new seeds, and drag old dust back up.

And having her friends injured is always a storm for Riza.

“You don’t have to do everything alone,” Maria says quietly. “I know it’s what you do, sniper, only child, all that. But you’ve got me now, yeah?”

It’s a fact, and it’s a promise. Somehow, Maria Ross tumbled into her life, gradually, and then she just never left. It wasn’t until Riza found herself with a conversation every day and thoughts of Maria on her mind every moment that she’d even realised that she’d fallen, and fallen hard. At the start it was new and strange, and at odds with everything she’d known, to accept help. But now, she’s grown dependent, for better or worse, and she relaxes to let herself be held. Because Maria knows. Maria knows everything that’s ever meant anything to Riza, understands it, loves her for it. She had never imagined that she could have this. Not after Ishval, and her father had taught her too well that not having love or attachment was better than finding it to be warped and twisted. But now, even though the storm is still there (it’ll never leave) it’s—bearable. And though the words get caught in her throat, she needs to say them, because they’re important, and she needs to give _something_ back.

“You…help,” she says quietly. “I…” She almost says it; the apology is sitting on the tip of her tongue. But there have been enough rough nights, rough days, rough weeks, where Maria has held her like she is now, and whispered _you don’t ever have to apologise for this_ , that Riza is starting to believe it.

“You help. Thank you.”

There aren’t many words; Riza’s never been that good at them. But here, now, with arms wrapped around her as a promise of shelter, somehow willingly provided when needed, it’s enough.


End file.
